Leaders start shutdown talks after Trump eases wall threat

The fight in Congress over a $5 billion border wall lessened after the White House said President Trump does not want a federal government shutdown.

The fight in Congress over a $5 billion border wall lessened after the White House said President Trump does not want a federal government shutdown.

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

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The fight in Congress over a $5 billion border wall lessened after the White House said President Trump does not want a federal government shutdown.

The fight in Congress over a $5 billion border wall lessened after the White House said President Trump does not want a federal government shutdown.

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

Leaders start shutdown talks after Trump eases wall threat

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WASHINGTON — President Trump appeared Tuesday to back off his demand for $5 billion to build a border wall, signaling for the first time that he might be open to a deal that would avoid a partial government shutdown.

The White House set the tone when press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders indicated that Trump doesn’t want to shut down the government, though just last week he said he’d be “proud” to do so. The president would consider other options and the administration was looking at ways to find the money elsewhere, Sanders said.

It was a turnaround after days of impasse. Without a resolution, more than 800,000 government workers could be furloughed or sent to work without pay beginning at midnight Friday, disrupting government operations days before Christmas.

One option that has been circulating on Capitol Hill would be to simply approve government funding at existing levels, without a boost for the border, as a stopgap measure to kick the issue into the new Congress next month. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., confirmed his office was preparing legislation to keep government funded, likely into February. The White House preference was for such a short-term package, said a person familiar with the negotiations.

“We want to know what can pass,” Sanders said at a press briefing. “Once they make a decision and they put something on the table, we’ll make a determination on whether we’ll move forward.”

She also said the president “has asked every agency to look and see if they have money that can be used.”

The turn of events kick-started negotiations that had been almost nonexistent since last week’s televised meeting at the White House, when Trump neither accepted nor rejected the Democrats’ offer. They had proposed keeping funding at current levels of $1.3 billion for border security fencing and other improvements, but not for the wall.

The standoff dispute could affect nine of 15 Cabinet-level departments and dozens of agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Interior, Agriculture, State and Justice, as well as national parks and forests.